Inside the O'Briens

by Lisa Genova

  Above Mary, a white marble font is fixed to the wall, filled with holy water. Rosie blesses herself and anyone in arm’s length every time she leaves or enters the house. She refreshes the water every Sunday. Joe berates himself for forgetting to anoint his Pedroia shirt this morning before he left for roll call. Maybe that’s why the Sox lost. He’ll be sure to bless his Ortiz shirt for Game 3.

  He steps onto the threshold of the living room and then stops in his tracks. Rosie is up, but she’s not ironing or lying down on the couch, watching QVC or Oprah. The TV is off. She’s sitting cross-legged, like a small child, her knitted ivory afghan draped over her shoulders and around her lap, holding an empty wineglass with both hands. An empty bottle of Chardonnay sits on the coffee table next to a full bottle of tomato-red nail polish. He notices her shiny red toenails peeking out from under the afghan.

  She’s still wearing eye makeup and her gold cross necklace. She’s not in pajamas. She smiles when she sees him, but he can tell it’s a lie, and the heavy expression in her eyes turns the bones in Joe’s legs to Jell-O.

  “Who?” he asks.

  Rosie takes a deep breath.

  “Amy called.”

  “Where are the kids?”

  “The kids are fine.”

  The kids are fine. Rosie’s face is still unfamiliar, wrong. Amy called. Tommy’s wife.

  Oh God.

  “What is it? Where’s Tommy?”

  “Tommy’s home. Nothing happened to Tommy. She called about you.”

  “What about me?”

  Joe’s heart is racing but it doesn’t know where to, as if he’s searching the rooms of a house he’s never been in, frantic, not knowing what he’s looking for.

  “She said Tommy’s worried about you. He’s worried something’s wrong.”

  “With me? What’s he worried about?”

  Rosie pauses and lifts her empty wineglass. She stops before it reaches her lips, realizing she already drained it, and lowers it back to her lap.

  “He’s worried you might have a drinking problem.”

  “That’s crazy.”

  She stares at him.

  “Jesus, Rosie, I don’t. You know I don’t. I’m not a drinker. I’m not my mother.”

  He can’t help but see the irony in the empty bottle of wine in front of her, but he resists the urge to make a crack, to deflect this unjust accusation by attacking her. Meanwhile, he’s dying for that Corona.

  “Then is it drugs?” she asks.

  “What?” he asks, his voice too high and too loud, making him sound guilty when what he really feels is outrage. “What would make him even think such a ridiculous thing?”

  He waits. Whatever it is, she’s thinking it, too. What the fuck is going on?

  “Don’t get mad.”

  Instead of dissipating, the flood of sick apprehension for his kids and then Tommy is still coursing through him, hunting for something to do. Anger begins swelling in his chest, one storm colliding with another.

  “I come home after a sixteen-hour day and get accused of being a druggie. I’m fuckin’ mad, Rosie.”

  “He cares about you. He says you’ve been acting weird, not like you.”

  “Like how?”

  “Like you’ve been sloppy with procedure. He said you staggered getting out of your cruiser the other day and fell down.”

  “My damn knee.”

  “Your reports all come back rejected, and it’s taking you hours to turn them in.”

  That’s true.

  “He’s worried about you, Joe. I am, too.”

  “Because of what Amy told you?”

  “Yeah,” says Rosie, but she’s not finished. She searches Joe’s face, testing the waters. There is more here. He opens his palms, trying to soften his demeanor, giving her space to speak her mind. He moves over to the couch and sits down next to her so he’s not standing over her. Maybe she needs another glass of wine. He could sure use that Corona.

  “I’ve been seeing things, too,” she says. “I’m worried, too.”

  So now she’s his wife and a detective.

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know; it’s like you’re not you. You’re always so fidgety, and you’re late all the time and you never used to be. And your temper, your temper—”

  “I’m fine. I’m just tired and cranky, and I’ve been puttin’ in too many overtime hours. We need a vacation, hun. What about a trip to the Caribbean, wouldn’t that be nice?”

  Rosie nods and stares at the coffee table.

  “I’m not drinkin’, Rosie. I promise. And I’m definitely not on drugs. You have to trust that about me.”

  “I know. I believe you.”

  “Then what are you worried about?”

  Rosie holds the gold cross on her chest between her thumb and finger and rubs it over and over, a stereotypy Joe recognizes as prayer.

  “I think you should go see a doctor.”

  Rosie’s tough. She’s the wife of a cop. She knows full well that every time Joe leaves for work, he might not come home. She knows that Joe keeps a copy of his will and a handwritten good-bye letter to Rosie taped to the inside door of his police locker, just in case. She knows how to cope with a mountain of worry strapped to her back and still stand up straight. But here she is, looking small and vulnerable, like a little girl up too late and afraid to go back to sleep because of monsters under the bed. He has to show her they’re not real.

  “I’m fine, but okay, I’ll prove it to you. I’ll go to the doctor and get checked out. I’ll even take a drug test if you want.”

  He holds her in his arms and rocks her, protecting her from this invented, fictional threat, whatever she’s imagining is wrong. It’s okay, baby. There aren’t any monsters here. She cries in his arms.

  “What time did Amy call you?”

  “Around eight.”

  Good God. Rosie’s been whipping herself up for hours. He shakes his head, pissed at Tommy for putting her through this.

  “It’s okay. Let it out. I’m okay, but I’ll go to the doctor if that’ll make you feel better. Maybe he can fix my bum knee.”

  Joe cradles her face in his hands, wipes the tears and black mascara streaks on her cheeks with his thumbs, and offers her his love in a tender smile. She smiles back, but hers still isn’t speaking the truth. She knows how much he hates doctors. He hasn’t seen one in twenty years. She doesn’t believe him.

  “I will, Rosie. I don’t want you to worry like this. I’ll make an appointment tomorrow. I promise, I’ll go to the doctor.”

  She nods and exhales, but she still feels stiff in his arms. Scared and unconvinced. She doesn’t believe he’ll actually go to the doctor. But he will. He’d do anything to make Rosie feel safe. He’ll take care of this.

  “I’m okay, darlin’. I promise.”

  She nods and doesn’t believe him.

  CHAPTER 7

  A cold, creeping dread whispers in Joe’s ear as he and Rosie wait to cross Fruit Street. A taxi whizzes by too close to the curb and splashes slush onto Joe’s jeans and sneakers. He looks over at Rosie. The cabbie got her, too. Joe grabs hold of Rosie’s bare hand, and they dash across the street together.

  They’re heading over to the Wang Ambulatory Care Center at Massachusetts General Hospital. Joe’s been to the General innumerable times, but always as a law enforcement officer on duty, always in front of the main building along with EMS or in the ambulance bay inside the ER. A few times, he’s guarded prisoners in the psych ER. He was here on Marathon Monday, ushering the bomb victims—legs impaled with metal, shredded, bleeding, missing—into the hands of the surgeons. Nothing in his training or experience prepared him or any officer for the carnage they witnessed that day. He’s never been in any other part of the hospital while on duty, and never anywhere here as a civilian.
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  He’s wearing sneakers and jeans and his thin black coat that isn’t even close to warm enough for this weather, and he looks just like all the other people making their way to the Wang entrance, people who need surgery or chemotherapy or dialysis or some other serious medical attention. He’s following the sick and wounded into a hospital, and he despises his ordinary jeans and cheap coat. He might as well be naked.

  He’s still holding Rosie’s hand, but he’s lagging behind now, like a recalcitrant child being led to the principal’s office or church, tethered to her steady progress toward the elevators. An unashamed germophobe, Rosie pushes the UP button with her sleeve pulled down over her hand. They wait. They get on the elevator alone. They say nothing and stare at the numbers lighting left to right. The light stops on the number seven. Ping. The elevator doors open. Here they are.

  The Movement Disorders Unit.

  Joe went to see his primary care physician in November, almost two months ago, a quick visit that amounted to nothing but this referral. If it had been up to Joe, he would’ve blown off this appointment. He went to the doctor, as promised. Duty served. But Rosie insisted and she meant it, and Joe’s learned that when Rosie means it, acquiescence is the most efficient route to his future. So here they are, at the office of some fancy movement specialist. Seems like complete overkill for a tired man with a bad knee.

  They enter the waiting room, Rosie lets the receptionist know Joe is here, and they sit down. Joe checks out the cast of characters on display, and the bashful dread that breezed by him outside on the sidewalk now penetrates him fully and with ease, like cold liquid coursing through his veins.

  An elderly woman with paper-thin bluish-white skin is slumped in a wheelchair, staring at the floor with her cloudy eyes. The younger woman next to her, her daughter perhaps, is reading a magazine. A man, younger than the elderly woman but older than Joe, around sixty maybe, with a full head of gray hair, glasses, and the saggy face of a walrus, is seat-belted into a reclined wheelchair, his head dropped to one side, looking at nothing. Although someone must be, no one appears to be accompanying him. Another guy is sitting in one of the waiting room chairs, so he can presumably walk. His mouth is hanging open as if permanently unhinged, like dead Jacob Marley without the handkerchief knotted around his head. His wife or sister or nurse dutifully wipes the drool dripping from his mouth with tissues she retrieves from her purse. It’s an ongoing, constant leak. A white towel draped across his chest absorbs whatever liquid she misses.

  Everyone, including Joe and Rosie, is silent, and Joe’s not sure whether the others are capable of speaking or choosing not to. Joe observes each person long enough to gather these basic descriptive details but then purposefully averts his eyes. He doesn’t want to get caught staring. The cold dread is now an insistent tingling, a foreboding chant in his bones.

  This is a room full of invalid zombies. This is purgatory, a wretched place of indefinite and possibly interminable waiting between heaven and hell. Then again, Joe can’t imagine anyone here destined for anything good. There is no heaven here. This room is a holding cell for the damned, and while Joe feels bad for the misfortune of these poor souls, he wants no part of it.

  This is a mistake. His winter coat suddenly feels torturously tight around his chest, and now he’s hot, too hot, and he should just take the damn coat off, but he knows that won’t help. The buzzing chant in his bones is now practically deafening, screaming at the top of its lungs. You are in the WRONG PLACE at the WRONG TIME, buddy. Get the fuck out of here NOW.

  “Joseph O’Brien,” calls a young woman at the door to hell. She’s wearing gray scrubs, holding a clipboard, waiting for him. There’s no hint of human joy on her face or in her posture.

  Rosie, who had been knitting, packs up her yarn and needles in a hurry and stands first. Joe copies her, but instead of bolting, he follows her and the angel of death into an examination room. Again, he and Rosie sit side by side. Joe avoids looking at the examining table and focuses on the closed door, reviewing in his mind the quickest route out of the building—left out this door, then the second right, through purgatory, left in the hallway, elevators on the right. The door swings open.

  “Hi, I’m Dr. Cheryl Hagler.”

  She’s standing before Joe, completely obscuring his view of the door, his fantasy of escape. Dr. Cheryl Hagler. Cheryl. This is his doctor. A woman. Rosie didn’t mention that. An intentional omission. He’s sure she’s a fine doctor. And smart, too. Hell, he’d be the first to admit that Rosie, Meghan, and Katie are all smarter than he is. He looks down at his jeans and sneakers. He doesn’t want to be here, seen like this in front of anyone, never mind a woman.

  Joe stands and shakes Dr. Hagler’s hand. She has a firm handshake, which Joe appreciates. In black heels, she’s Joe’s height and looks about Joe’s age. She’s wearing a white lab coat, which is too big in the shoulders and misbuttoned by one, revealing nothing of what she’s wearing underneath but for a round silver loop dangling from a silver chain on her breastbone. Her black hair is loosely collected in a bun, but it’s sloppy, nothing like the tight, perfectly round knobs of hair he sees on Meghan. She’s attractive, but Joe gets the sense that her appearance is the last thing this woman cares about.

  As she sits in the chair across from Joe and Rosie, she slides the black-rimmed glasses from the top of her head to the bridge of her duckbill nose and flips through the papers on the clipboard. She then places the clipboard on her lap, tucks her glasses back on top of her head, and clasps her hands, extending her pointer fingers into the shape of a steeple. Joe straightens in his seat, trying to take up more space.

  “So tell me what’s going on,” she says as if they’re old friends having casual dinner conversation.

  “Not much.”

  She taps her pointer fingers and waits for Joe to change his story, elaborate, or pass the rolls. He says nothing.

  “It says here you’ve been having some issues with falling, dropping things, staying on time and organized.”

  “Oh yeah. Well, yeah, that.”

  “What do you think is causing the falling?” she asks.

  “I injured this knee a while back.”

  Joe lifts his right knee off the ground to show her. He then begins wiggling that leg. Dr. Hagler refers back to the pages on the clipboard and then looks at Joe and Joe’s wiggly leg.

  “Do you ever have any dizziness or double vision?”

  “No.”

  “Any numbness in your arms and legs?”

  “No.”

  “Any tremors?”

  Dr. Hagler holds her right hand out and shakes it, demonstrating.

  “No.”

  “Any headaches?”

  “No.”

  “Any trouble with strength?”

  “No. I feel a bit more tired than usual.”

  “Are you getting enough sleep?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What do you do for work?”

  “I’m a Boston police officer.”

  She nods and writes something down.

  “How are things going on the job?”

  “Good. I mean, I guess I’m having some issues I never used to have, like being late and getting all the details right in my reports. Guess I’m not as young as I used to be.”

  Dr. Hagler nods and waits, and Joe feels pressured to fill the silence, like it’s still his turn.

  “And sometimes I’m a bit of a spaz. Y’know, some drops and stumbles. I think it’s my knee here.”

  Joe lifts his right leg again.

  “Are you worried about losing your job?”

  “No.”

  Not until this moment.

  “Any personality changes?”

  Joe shrugs. He wasn’t expecting this kind of question.

  “I dunno,” he says, turning to Rosie. “Whaddaya think, hun? Am I sti
ll the same ole prick I’ve always been?”

  He’s smiling, joking, but Rosie isn’t. She says nothing and folds her arms over her chest, probably embarrassed that Joe said “prick” in front of a woman doctor.

  “Rose, have you noticed any changes in Joe’s personality?” asks Dr. Hagler.

  Rosie nods.

  “Like what?” asks Dr. Hagler.

  “Yeah, he’s got this short fuse. You never know what’s going to set him off, and he can go from like zero to sixty in nothing. I don’t mean to make him sound like a jerk. He’s a good man, but he’s got this weird temper, and it’s not like him to be like that.”

  “How long has he had this weird temper?”

  Rosie hesitates, thinking. Joe expects her to say maybe a few months.

  “Six, seven years.”

  Jesus, really?

  “Any feelings of depression, Joe?” asks Dr. Hagler.

  “No.”

  “How’s your stress level right now? On a scale of one to ten, ten being the highest.”

  Joe thinks for a few seconds.

  “Five.”

  “Why is it five and not one?”

  “It’s never one.”

  “Why is that?”

  “I’m a cop. We’re trained to never relax.”

  “Even when you’re not on duty?”

  “Yeah, I can’t turn it off.”

  “So is it always at five?”

  “I’d say it’s typically around three.”

  “So why the extra two?”

  Waiting in purgatory. Being questioned by a woman doctor in civilian clothes. That would do it. And if that’s not enough, he’s apparently been a prick with a weird temper for at least six years.

  “This isn’t exactly a day at the spa here,” says Joe.

  “Fair enough,” says Dr. Hagler, smiling. “Rose, is there anything else you’ve noticed in Joe?”